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The Ninety-Six
Eight-foot black walnut dining table, breadboard ends, tapered solid legs. Seats eight comfortably and ten if everyone is being reasonable about it.
$7,40011 weeks · walnut, white oak, ash
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Custom hardwood furniture · Portland, Oregon
Dining tables, desks and casework in solid hardwood. Every price is on the website. Every lead time is the real one. If your project is a bad idea, I'll tell you before you pay me.
Recent commissions
Prices are what the piece costs. Not a starting point, not a range, not "enquire within."
Eight-foot black walnut dining table, breadboard ends, tapered solid legs. Seats eight comfortably and ten if everyone is being reasonable about it.
Sixty by thirty, solid top, steel understructure. Yes, steel. I've heard the argument against metal legs and I've decided the argument is mostly about somebody else's taste.
Round walnut pedestal table with bow tie inlays and brass detailing. Designed at forty-two inches. Delivered at forty-one. The client knows exactly why, because I put it in writing.
Sideboards, credenzas, built-ins. Less photogenic than a big slab table, which is precisely why almost nobody films it and almost everybody actually needs it.
Roughly a third of the people who contact me about a large dining table leave with this instead. It fits the room, it costs a fifth as much, and nobody has come back unhappy.
Cupped tops, failed finishes, resin that has yellowed in a south-facing window exactly as predicted. No lecture included. A small amount of lecture is available on request.
About the shop
I spent four years behind a camera pointed at furniture. You learn things.
Mostly you learn where the edit happens — which mistakes get cut, which numbers don't get said out loud, and how much of a finished piece is finish and how much is lighting.
I'm not going to be dramatic about leaving. Nobody was wronged. I just reached the point where I had opinions about how this work should be sold, and holding a camera is a poor position from which to express them.
So: published prices, real lead times, and a shop that will talk you out of the expensive version. That's the whole differentiator. It shouldn't be a differentiator.
He still has my tripod. That part I'm a little bitter about.
House rules
Five things this shop believes, in writing, so you can hold me to them.
If your slab has a hole in it, that's a defect — and I'm charging you less for it, not more.
An epoxy river is a four-figure answer to a question nobody asked. I'll fill a void because it's structural. I won't light it from underneath and call it a feature.
It's a tolerance, not a moral failing. Every object in your house was made by somebody who stopped. I'll tell you where I stopped and why, in writing, before you pay.
No tiers, no bundles, no "normally $1,200." It was never $1,200. You and I both know it was never $1,200.
A third of enquiries leave with a smaller project or none at all. Commercially this is indefensible. I sleep unbelievably well.
Not "consult." Not "stand nearby for insurance reasons." If you're at my bench holding something wrong, I'll walk over and fix your grip, and I won't film it first.
How it works
Four steps. No discovery call, no strategy session, no thirty-minute video explaining the process you're currently reading in ninety seconds.
Three commission slots open for spring. Lead time is eleven weeks and that's the number I actually expect to hit, not the number that sounds good on a website.
If it slips, you'll hear it from me first, with the new date and the reason.
| Lead time | 11 weeks |
| Deposit | One third, after drawings |
| Slots open | 3 |
| Delivery | Portland metro included |
| Quotes | Free, itemised, occasionally discouraging |
An honest comparison
I'm not going to name them. We're on good terms. Mostly.
| A larger studio across town | Scottail Studio | |
|---|---|---|
| Epoxy rivers | Yes. Enthusiastically. Then a video announcing the end of them. Then more of them. | No. |
| Where the price is | Available upon enquiry. | On the page. You already scrolled past it. |
| Lead time quoted | Aspirational. | Eleven weeks. The real one. |
| Courses offered | Twenty-six chapters. Minimum. | One. It's forty minutes. |
| Marking knife | Hand-forged Damascus steel. | Pencil. Two dollars. Marks wood. |
| Bow tie inlays | "Incredibly easy." Sells the jig. | Easy on the fourth one. I'd like to submit a rebuttal. |
| Metal legs | Strongly discouraged. | Permitted. Frequently correct. |
| Help at the bench | Consultation only. | I'll hold the other end. |
| Sanding footage | Left in. Scored. Colour graded. | Removed, quietly, by me, for years. |
The ledger
The entire catalogue
This is all of it. There's no second page and no bundle that unlocks the good version.
Forty minutes, start to finish. Eleven of them are me explaining why you shouldn't pour resin into a perfectly good slab. No modules, no community, no upsell at minute thirty-eight.
A carpenter's pencil. It makes a line on wood so you know where to cut. No forging step, no heritage, no waiting list. Ships in an envelope.
Nine hours of continuous sanding. No music, no commentary, no cuts. I removed this from a video once and people wrote in asking for it back. Fine. It's yours. I don't understand you.
You put the sandpaper in the bin. Then the sandpaper is in the bin. I'm not charging you for this. Use a bin you already own.
Free tool
Tell me about your slab. I'll tell you how much resin you actually need.
Clients
He talked me out of an eight thousand dollar dining table and sold me a six hundred dollar bench. I've never been happier and I remain slightly confused about what happened.
— Homeowner, Bend, OregonFinally. A furniture website where I can locate the price without emailing anybody.
— Someone on RedditDelivered a week early, then emailed to explain a flaw I would never have noticed. I have thought about that email a lot.
— Client, Southeast PortlandThe bow ties really are easy, I never touched his bearings, and the tripod was always mine.
— A larger studio across townSome interesting reads
Join the list
I'm not building a funnel. I occasionally finish a table and I'd like someone to look at it.
We respect your privacy — which in this case means I genuinely do not have the technical infrastructure required to violate it.